Analysis of Urban Land Expansion and Spatial Diversity Based on RS and GIS - A Case Study of Changsha City, China

With the rapid development of urbanization, the urban land expansion becomes an important content in the research on land use dynamic change .Using the multi-temporal RS images of Changsha City in 1979, 1996, 2003, 2008 and developing information of urban land from 1949 to 2008, the quantitative, land use structure, spatial diversity and other characteristics of urban land expansion are studied based on RS and GIS in 5 different periods. It´s important to provide the information for urban planning and management. The results show that the speed and intensity of Changsha urban land expansion have gradually increased, and the urban spatial expansion patterns have experienced a conversion from a single external space expansion to a combination of external and internal expansion, from a circle-layered or linear continuous expansion to a form of plaque-like or group-like non-continuous expansion in recent 60 years.